State to deport over 100 arrested illegal immigrants

Officials screen individuals at Safaricom Sports centre, Kasarani during operation to isolate illegal immigrants. (Moses Omusula/Standard)

By CYRUS OMBATI

Kenya: More illegal immigrants are to be deported after the Government intensified its operations during the Easter holidays.

Officials said more than 100 have been lined up for deportation after their arrest over the weekend. More than 200 others will be taken to refugee camps after it was established they were living outside the gazetted areas.

Those scheduled for deportation are being held at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Railways police station while the refugees are at the Kasarani and Gigiri police stations.

At the weekend, more than 200 people were arrested in the operations in Nairobi but some were released after they produced documents to show they were here legally.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku said some 281 refugees have so far been taken back to the camps from Nairobi since Thursday.

The first group of 111 refugees was transported out of the Kasarani Safaricom Stadium on Thursday evening in four buses to the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.

The second group comprising of 170 refugees left Nairobi on Friday evening in six buses.

This, he said, is in line with the Government policy to have refugees settled only in gazetted refugee camps.

The refugees were netted during the ongoing security operation, which started on April 1.

Ole Lenku said the directive requiring refugees to be settled strictly in gazetted refugee camps issued on March 25 conforms to local and international laws governing refugee affairs.

“This is per   Section   16(2) of   the   Refugee   Act   2006   and   Article   2  of  the  1951  Geneva   Convention,” he said adding: “Every refugee has to conform to the laws and regulations of the country in which he finds himself for the maintenance of public order.” Kenya hosts more than 600,000 refugees and asylum seekers from over 11 countries.

In Turkana, 39 illegal aliens were last week arrested, taken to court and fined Sh10,000 before being jailed for three months after which they will be deported.